factors influencing the desired number of children among married women in the reproductive age and its implications for policy making

Background:desired number of children is one of the main indexes showing the fertility preferences of couples. this issue is currently more important as iranian policy makers are revising population policies to improve fertility rate. objectives:as a result, the main goal of this study was to investigate factors influencing the number of desired children among married women in the reproductive age. a theoretical framework was constructed based on demographic transition theory, demandsupply theory and diffusion theory. methods:this study was a quantitative research and its research technique was survey. the population of the study included all married women at the reproductive age (15-49), who were living in shiraz county (shiraz city and surrounding rural areas). data was collected by interviews with 626 women, who were selected by multi cluster sampling and purposive sampling during year 2014. data was analyzed by the spss (version 22) software. results:the findings showed that the desired number of children both in shiraz city and its surrounding rural areas was exactly below the replacement rate. in addition, findings of this study demonstrated that the desired number of children as a dependent variable is affected by a set of socioeconomic and cultural factors. results have revealed that the main predictors are couple agreement on the number of children, respondents income, son preference, respondents authority and ethnicity. conclusions:overall, the variables considered in the research model explained only 32.7% of change in the dependent variable. this means that 67.3% of change in the number of desired children is related to factors that are not included in the research model. moreover, most of the women in shiraz county desired to have a small family size and this fact can result in further decline of fertility rates in the future because couples respect their desires in fertility. as a result, it is recommender for policy makers to pay more attention to factors influencing the desired number of children.